1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to e-commerce and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for integrating a provider with third-party vendors.
2. Description of the Related Art
E-commerce providers, such as ADOBE®, often sell their products through third-party vendors, such as ITUNES® or AMAZON®. Each vendor typically has a unique way of selling products through their e-commerce system. For example, AMAZON® uses its own Simple Notification Service (SNS) and Simple Queue Service (SQS) linking based communication protocol. That is, SQS and SNS are messaging services that communicate by sending an email to a user which includes a confirmation link to a specified email address. The user is required to monitor the email address to explicitly “opt-in” to receive an item or service by clicking the provided link. Product details are not included in the communicated message. ITUNES® uses a receipt-based mechanism where an email communication provides a purchase receipt having an Order ID and text description for the transaction details. Also, vendors manage their own stock-keeping units (SKUs) so as to track product inventory. Thus, to properly interpret orders received from a plurality of vendors, a provider's e-commerce system must be integrated with each vendor's system, so as to process and understand each of their specific communication and transaction protocols, as well as to properly manage the vendors' SKUs.
Currently, one or more engineering teams work on integration of the vendor communication and transaction protocols with the e-commerce system of the provider, on a vendor-by-vendor basis. For each vendor, code must be written so that a provisioning call to the provider will properly handle the transaction reporting details, including identity of the purchaser and management of the SKUs and other transaction details. This individual attention results in a significant cost in time and resources to the provider each time the provider wants to integrate with a new vendor or any of the details of an already integrated vendor has a change in their communication or transaction reporting protocol.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for seamlessly integrating an e-commerce provider with third-party vendors.